


Pride and Pain

by Batastic_Grayson



Category: Batman - All Media Types, Superman - All Media Types
Genre: Bottom Bruce Wayne, Bruce Wayne Needs a Hug, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Clark Kent/Bruce Wayne, Gay Pride, Gay Sex, Glitter, Harassment, Homophobic Language, Long-Term Relationship(s), M/M, Metropolis (DCU), Pride, Protective Clark Kent, References to ABBA, Trans Male Character, Transgender, Walk Into A Bar
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-30
Updated: 2020-03-30
Packaged: 2021-03-01 01:13:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,276
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23386417
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Batastic_Grayson/pseuds/Batastic_Grayson
Summary: Bruce and Clark join the majority of Metropolis in celebrating Pride in the annual parade. It's a glittery, loud, euphoric celebration of equality and love until one homophobic asshole decides to rain on their parade. Tensions between Bruce and Clark ignite as issues of identity and pride come to the surface, but nothing's kept them apart this far...and it certainly won't now.
Relationships: Clark Kent/Bruce Wayne
Comments: 7
Kudos: 68





	Pride and Pain

**Author's Note:**

> TRIGGER WARNING
> 
> This piece features some really strong homophobic language from the harassing character that might be triggering to you. Please be cautious in proceeding if language of that nature is usually upsetting to you. 
> 
> Also, Bruce is a transgender man in this fic. Being a transgender man myself, I hope my experience came through in Bruce clearly. It was a pleasure to write someone like me! 
> 
> As always, DC owns the characters, I own the storyline!

We spend the better part of six hours marching down Metropolis streets in the beating summer heat, ducking underneath awnings to celebrate with strangers and hand out strings of multicolored beads. We listen to music so loud it probably damages our hearing, and we scream along the words to songs we all know with a vigor that only a group of misfits could have. We wave flags with sweat dripping down our backs and we link hands and kiss beneath rainbow balloon arches.

It’s an afternoon spent celebrating love and diversity in Metropolis’ annual Pride festival, and when the crowds eventually start to disperse from the parade route, the sun has started to dip below the horizon. Clouds are starting to huddle around what was a spotless sky, and we are twenty feet from a bar when the rain falls from the heavens like a baptism. We run to the entrance with hands linked, laughing like kids, and we stumble inside in a tumble of rainwater and limbs.

We pause inside the doorway, catching our breath as we swipe glitter and multicolored paint now running off our chins. It’s Bruce who surveys the bar first, grey eyes quick and assessing even as he smiles. He hooks a thumb towards the bar, “Wanna grab a drink before we head back home?”

I lift a shoulder, “Couldn’t hurt.” I lift onto my tiptoes for a moment, reading a puffy-painted sign propped on the bar advertising a Pride special on margaritas and daiquiris. I wiggle my brows at Bruce, “They have rainbow mixed drinks if you’re feeling _extra_ gay.”

“Oh, you know I am.”

It’s a testament to Bruce’s mood and the energy left from the parade that he grins wickedly at me and grips one of my hands to pull me towards the bar. He’s normally a relatively sedate member of the LGBT community—he does his community work and he isn’t ashamed of who he is, but it’s never been central to his personality and he prefers to keep his business private. I’ve always respected his desire to keep our personal life shielded from the world around us, but Pride has always had the special effect of making him rather ballsy.

On a normal day, he might’ve been a bit cowed by our matching shirts that read “Gay AF”, or the glitter paint we both have smeared on our cheeks, or the rainbow bandanas tied around our biceps. He might’ve preferred if we let our actions speak for themselves instead of broadcasting our gayness to everyone and everything. But when it’s Pride festival? All bets are off, and Bruce is a sight to see when he really lets himself cut loose.

Bruce stops at the bar and orders two Pride daquiris, shooting me a crooked smile when he mouths to me “extra gay” over the hubbub of the bar. Our drinks arrive a few minutes later as we lounge against the counter, fingers laced between us and heads leaned together. We’re both sun-sapped and tired, but the alcohol feels nice and being close to one another in public feels even nicer. We pluck the tiny umbrellas from our drinks and down them soundly, chatting over the hubbub surrounding us about the highlights of the festival.

It must be a half hour later that I stretch to a stand from the barstool and nod over to the juke box sitting remote in the corner. “Any requests?”

Bruce tosses back a handful of bar peanuts from a cupped hand, looking pleasantly flushed when he lifts a shoulder and calls after me, “Put on Abba.”

I groan, “You always say ABBA!”

I hear him chuckle even as the crowd closes between us and I near the juke box, “I like ABBA. So sue me.”

And like ABBA, he does. Whenever that man has a chance, he will try to wheedle me into putting on ABBA Gold. I will occasionally come home from an errand to find him in the kitchen or stooping over laundry, bobbing to Dancing Queen blaring through the stereo on high, socks pulled up over the cuffs of his sweats and a baggy t-shirt swaying with him. Singing. Not well, not beautifully, but God does he sing to ABBA. And loud. Really, really loud. He always turns mid-belt, catches me watching, and immediately flushes into adorable silence. It’s probably the cutest goddamn thing I’ve ever seen, and that’s saying something after living with him for three years.

I feed the juke box a few quarters from my pocket and punch in a string of ABBA hits. It’s a joy to see Bruce immediately start bouncing on his stool to Waterloo when the signature beat begins blasting through the speakers. It doesn’t take much coaxing to get him on his feet, and we shuffle into the middle of the pulsating crowd with our hands joined between us.

We dance for what seems like forever amidst the throng of strangers, yelling the lyrics with drunken gusto amidst a hundred other voices. It’s during one of these songs, while we’re pressed close to each other, sweat dripping and the bass thundering through our veins, that Bruce leans in and shouts something about grabbing us another couple drinks. I nod mutely, and I watch him slip through the crowd and disappear.

It takes a few minutes for me to realize he’s taking too long in coming back with our drinks. It’s hot inside the bar, and the effect of a few drinks already flushing through my system is enough to slow my senses. The music in and of itself is hypnotic, having switched to another 70's disco beat, and so I don’t notice how long it’s taking.

At some point though, I can feel my stomach pinch a bit. It’s the first sign of warning for me. Usually my gut cramps a little when Bruce is away from me, like we’re complementary organs or planets orbiting each other—something cosmic—and it never goes away until I find him again. I duck out of the crowd a moment later, still feeling mostly relaxed as I wonder why he’s taking so goddamn long to get us those drinks. Maybe he got distracted by the bar peanuts again.

It only takes a moment of looking to find him. He’s on the other side of the room, leaning into the bar with an expression that makes the cramping in my gut intensify tenfold. It’s the kind of look he gives when he’s trying to mitigate his reactions—lips pressed thin, brows furrowed, hands fiddling with the grain of the bar wood. All cool metal and soft control. It’s an expression he rarely gives, and I am immediately disturbed by the intensity of it.

My eyes dart to the man at his left, an older gentleman with a trucker ball cap and a beer-stained sweatshirt. It doesn’t take long to recognize that he’s the stressor. Judging by his frenzied mannerisms toward Bruce and the color risen up in his grizzled cheeks, he’s likely delivering a fiery speech from his barstool pulpit six beers deep. I’ll take a wild guess and say he’s offering Bruce some unsolicited advice about hellfire and brimstone, especially with how Bruce is dressed.

My stomach cramps violently, and I feel my fingers twitch as I start pushing through the clumps of bar patrons to Bruce. The closer I get, the easier it is to hear what the man is saying. Even the snippets I catch are disturbing, inflammatory hate speech. _Freaks. Abominations. Disgusting._ My blood runs about ten degrees hotter than is safe when the man pushes a finger in Bruce’s face and spits something about him being a _fucking f*ggot_.

I stop at Bruce’s side soon enough to catch the latest insult regarding Bruce’s eternal soul, and it’s a struggle for me not to just clock the motherfucker without giving him the chance to apologize. People are starting to notice the verbal whipping the man is dealing out, and it isn’t well-received among the current crowd spilling in from the parade.

I put myself between Bruce and the man on instinct, waiting for the drunk’s glossy eyes to loll to me slowly. When they do finally focus, I lift a brow and work for a diplomatic tone. It’s what Bruce would want—diplomacy—but God do I wanna beat this asshole’s face in for even fucking with him tonight of all nights.

“Do we have a problem here?”

The man lifts a brow that would be imperious if he weren’t so hammered. “You bring your f*g boyfriend to bail you out, huh?”

“Just leave him the fuck alone, you hear?”

This gets me a laugh as he takes a swig of his beer, “You’re both going to Hell, you know. You and all your little f*dge packer friends are gonna fucking burn.” He gestures to Bruce and I, to the rainbow paint still smeared down our cheeks, “All you gays today, always in our face with your unnatural relations—defying God. You’re lucky it’s not legal to cattle prod you like we used to in the old days, huh? Then we’d really see who would be holding fucking parades.”

It’s only the hand that gently grips my shoulder that stops me from lunging forward and taking the man to the ground to properly maim him. I have a few choice words I’d like to share with him that are better reinforced with my fists, but Bruce has always been the more level-headed of us. And when I turn back to look at him and his eyes are sad instead of angry, I feel all the fight go right out of me like I’ve been punched in the gut.

He sighs, dark brows furrowed, “Clark. Just leave it.”

He looks so goddamn tired, and the fact that this stupid homophobic bastard smudged out the carefree Bruce from earlier is enough to cripple me. It takes whatever urge there was to murder the man and morphs it abruptly into the urge to protect and comfort.

I blink, looking back to the antagonizer who is now smiling like he’s won a million bucks, arms crossed over his chest smugly. Bruce must sense the internal turmoil within me, because his gaze softens on me and he pulls on my shoulder. “Let’s go. He’s not worth a visit to the police station.”

“But—” I feel the word escape from my lips before I can redirect it. It falls unbidden even as I follow Bruce numbly for the door.

At this point, one of the witnesses has gotten a bouncer to escort the man outside. I hear vague threats of calling the police as Bruce pulls me away from the altercation towards the street. When we stumble out onto the sidewalk, it’s raining in torrents still, and our clothes are pressed like wet tissue paper to our skin as we begin walking silently towards our apartment several blocks away. I have the distinct impression that Bruce is upset with me, but for the life of me, I can’t understand why.

Either way, he won’t touch me and he’s certainly staying quiet. We stay silent most of the way home, and it’s only when we are beginning to climb the stairs up to the fourth floor that Bruce lets out a soft breath and reaches over to twine his fingers with mine. His eyes are dove grey when he frowns down to our feet squelching up the tiled stairs and murmurs, “You know, Clark, baby…I can fight my own fights.”

I hesitate a step, blinking up at him in disbelief, “Are you…mad at me?”

Bruce stops too, but he doesn’t look angry like I expected he would. He looks…frustrated. “No, I’m not—I’m not mad at you. I’m just…I need you to let me handle things like that on my own without you going macho on me, okay?”

I backtrack, feeling a sliver of self-doubt feather its way up my spine, “I wasn’t trying to undershoot you, Bruce. I know you can handle your own fights, I just—”

“You just wanted to protect me, I know.” He steps down with a sigh to the landing where I’ve stopped, and it’s a moment of exquisite beauty when he smiles lightly and grips my hand. “Look, it’s not about you, Clark. It’s not even about that asshole harassing me. I love that you want to protect me, I do, I just…I need to handle it my own way. You know things are different for me—being gay isn’t my biggest mountain, but being trans is. It always will be. And feeling like I can handle things like simple harassment without you saving me goes a really long way in making me feel…well, more empowered.”

It’s easy to forget that Bruce is an AFAB individual. He passes well, considering his transitionary treatments, and although he’s a good head shorter than me, no one has ever guessed he is transgender. But still. It colors the way he views the world, and he often feels like he has to earn his manhood more than the average cis guy ever would. It’s an impossible cross for him to bear alone, and it often leads to weird preferences and things he likes that make him feel more like himself. I’ve always respected them and understood. This, despite its seeming innocuous nature, is evidently one of them.

And I totally fucked it up.

I feel guilt drop to my gut like a lead ball, and I feel a sigh work out of me like a tired prayer. “I’m so sorry, Bruce. I didn’t mean to make you feel—less than or—”

“Babe, you didn’t do anything wrong, okay? It’s not even that big of a deal, I just…I wanted you to know why I was weird about it. I was feeling a bit emasculated already and then you swooped in to save me and I was afraid you’d…”

I inhale softly, risking a chuckle, “Escalate the situation?”

Bruce’s eyes flicker up to mine, and he smiles ruefully. “Yeah. You can get pretty territorial and I really didn’t want to engage with that guy any longer than we had to.”

I shake my head, “I’m sorry. I should’ve just joined you quietly and let you take the reins, I just…you deserve better and it kills me to see people treat you like shit.”

His expression is impossibly tender when he tips his chin up and presses a kiss to my lips. His mouth lingers close to mine, tasting the air between us for a moment, and he eventually sighs, “I do deserve better, you’re right. And that’s why I have you.”

We press our foreheads together, enjoying the closeness of stairwell confessions and new understandings. It’s these small minutes we spend, being honest with one another and vulnerable that we really grow as a team. It’s times like these that I see the beams of Bruce’s soul, like a light uncontainable behind shades. It’s radiant, blinding, and so strong it nearly fells me.

We separate a few moments later to trudge up the stairs hand in hand. When we push open the door of our apartment and slip inside, everything is still painted in shadows. The city outside is just speckles of light and whimsy, and the sounds from below are muted to near nothingness. The only sounds that populate the dark space of our entryway are the two of us, breathing, as we stand with our hands joined.

We venture deeper into the apartment, leaving the lights off. We slip our shoes off at some point, and through an unspoken agreement, we wander to the bedroom. We stop in front of the windows at our bedside, looking out at the speckled city below and the rain sheeting down like holy water, and Bruce leans into me with a sigh, taking a deep inhale. He chuckles lightly, and his features are washed in hues of blue and grey, “You smell like sunscreen.”

I smile, tracing a finger down his cheek. He looks impossibly rumpled, and he’s still damp from the rain, but God is he beautiful. “And _you_ have glitter paint smeared everywhere.”

Bruce looks like some gay alabaster statue in his rain-drenched clothes, rainbow streaks of color smeared down his cheeks and eyes bright like moonstones. When he laughs and leans into me further, reaching up on tiptoe to kiss me soundly, I melt into him. We linger here for a moment, taking things slowly. Sweetly.

It’s a few moments of this lazy kissing before the mood shifts (as it always does) and Bruce slots open an eye, smiling darkly up at me as he murmurs around my lips, “You still up for a night cap?”

I lift a brow, “A night cap, huh? What did you have in mind?”

He shrugs, nibbling at my lower lip in a way that is entirely too enticing, “Oh, you know, the usual. A cup of tea, offerings to our Lord Satan, crazy monkey gay sex, maybe a little ice cream with a movie…”

I laugh, “What was the middle part again?”

“Lord Satan?” He’s started moving his lips to my throat, sampling me like a fine wine, and I am turning to putty in his capable hands.

I swallow, feeling his teeth skate like a feather over my Adam’s apple. My voice comes out raw and breathy. “No, no. After the Satan bit.”

He hums, skimming his nose across my pulse. Gooseflesh peppers my skin when he chuckles and offers an innocently lifted brow even as his hands do that delightful thing to my—

“Oh, you mean the sex bit?”

I squirm, managing a halting, “Crazy monkey gay sex, wasn’t it?”

Bruce laughs again, a humming sort of sound that I feel clear into my toes as his lips descend south and he begins undressing me.

We try to take our time, we really do. But it’s hard to be intentional and slow when we’re reduced to sensation like we are this time. Everything ceases to exist but the pattern of our woven breathing, the press of skin on skin, the smell of sunscreen and strawberry rum and glitter paint. We peel each other out of rain-slicked clothes with fumbling hands, and we laugh when we fall onto the bed in a tangle of damp limbs and labored breathing.

It’s after we’ve both finished, when Bruce collapses on top of me with a heavy sigh and winds his arms around my neck that I really feel myself cataloguing the small details for later. It’s the disarray of ebony hair as he nuzzles into my neck, the press of rainbow paint on our joined cheeks, the icy feeling of rain-pruned fingertips, the sweet taste of fruit on his tongue. It’s the sound of rain battering our windowsills, the press of his moonbeam surgery scars against my chest, the delicious scent of summer hanging on his skin. He’s everywhere, all at once, and I’m overwhelmed by his beauty more than I ever have been before.

Bruce has earned every bit of who he is, and laying with him now, having his trust enough that we can be bare like this…it’s a gift I never take for granted. Transgender, gay, and everything in between…I am honored to call Bruce mine, despite what anyone else has to say about it. What we have, who we are together, this is sacred. _This_ is holy.

God help me if I don’t hold him a little bit tighter thinking about it.


End file.
